Here's What To Expect From Thursday's Big ECB Meeting

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, on Sept. 4 arrives for the ECB's monthly news conference in Frankfurt. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach At 7:45 a.m. ET on Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) will announce its latest decision on rates and monetary policy, with ECB president Mario Draghi taking press questions 45 minutes later.

Nobody is really expecting any more rate cuts: the marginal lending facility is at 0.3%, the main refinancing rate is at 0.05%, and the deposit rate is at -0.2%. Draghi has indicated that this is about as low as it's going to get.

What we will definitely get on Thursday is the details of the asset-backed securities and covered bonds the ECB plans to buy. What exactly the ECB buys and how much of it will be important questions.

Marchel Alexandrovich of Jefferies says in a research note that an ECB announcement of €80 billion to €100 billion ($101 billion to $126 billion) purchases would be enough "to signal a serious commitment." Societe Generale analysts are expecting an announcement of more like €130 to €150 billion ($164 billion to $189 billion).

The amount's important, as we saw with the TLTRO (targeted long-term refinancing operations) announcement in September. The ECB has said it wants to boost its balance sheet back to about €3 trillion ($3.8 trillion), so anything seen as too low could be regarded as a failure.

Aside from this, any suggestions that the ECB will pursue even further easing — ABS and covered bond markets are very small in comparison to the market for government debt, which the ECB could buy with a full QE programme. Calls for QE aren't likely to end Friday.